Seasonal, healthy and delicious vegetarian recipes, with the occasional cake thrown in for good measure!

Vanilla, Apricot and Raspberry Cake with White Chocolate Frosting

Finally I have a few minutes to write up the recipe for my birthday cake. This cake was amazing! I love having fresh fruit in cakes in the summer as opposed to jam and fresh raspberries and apricots are two of my favourite fruits! The frosting is a wonderful white chocolate cream cheese frosting, it hasn’t got very much sugar in which was great as I find frosting to be too sweet for me most of the time.

I had a wonderful birthday with my family, my nephew came bursting into the house at 8.30am incredibly excited about my birthday. I opened the present from my sister (and her family) which were three beautiful purses which she had made herself and they are amazing! I’m going to use the largest one as a makeup bag, the middle one as my purse, as she sewed a pocket for bank cards in it, and I haven’t decided about the smallest one yet.

I then took my sister, niece and nephew into the local village to buy some last minute ingredients for my birthday cake and then to visit my granparents. I haven’t seen my grandparents on my birthday for a number of years so being able to see all four of them was amazing. It was also incredibly helpful as I couldn’t get hold of any white chocolate in the shops but my grandma happened to have some which was great!

I spent the afternoon making my cake with my nephew, whilst drinking homemade strawberry and lime smoothies. My sister and I used to have one everyday with a white chocolate magnum as our lunch when I was studying for my GCSE exams and she was studying for her A-level exams 10 years ago. We then got everything ready for my birthday pizza night and had a great evening with my parents and sister and her family.

Vanilla, Apricot and Raspberry Cake with White Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients

3 apricots, cut into segments

300g raspberries

6oz self raising flour

6 oz caster sugar

6oz butter, softened

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp milk (optional)

For the white chocolate cream cheese frosting

100g white chocolate

100g cream cheese

25g butter

2 tbsp icing sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method

For the cake, preheat the oven to 180C. Line two 18cm/7inch circular baking tins with parchment.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a freestanding mixer (if possible) until pale and fluffy.

Add the eggs and vanilla extract, mix for a minute, then add the flour and mix until everything is incorporated together. If the cake batter is a bit thick add a tbsp of milk and mix it through.

Divide the cake batter into the two tins and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Once the cakes have cooked and cooled it’s time to make the frosting.

Melt the white chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.

Meanwhile in a freestanding mixer, mix the butter and cream cheese together for 5 minutes until smooth and fluffy.

Once the white chocolate has melted and cooled slightly, pour into the mixer, along with the vanilla extract and mix for a further five minutes. Add the icing sugar and continue to mix until the frosting is very light and fluffy.

To assemble the cake spread the white chocolate frosting onto the bottom half of the cake, cover this with raspberries then place the top piece of cake on top. Cover the top with the remaining frosting, cover with raspberries and apricots then grate some white chocolate over the top.